Sunday, February 25, 2018

Pakistani forces in Saudi Arabia

Despite
Pakistan’s parliament decision to not to send troops to Saudi Arabia which
Pakistan feared will be sucked into the Yemen Conflict, the government (meaning
the powerful Military) decided to send more than 1000 troops under the guise of
the 1982 military pact. And when the Senate and the Parliament wanted to get
some answers from the government why it bypassed the parliament and under what
conditions the troops are there, the government refused to divulge the details
of the deployment. So it seems that essentially the military called the shots
in this case (as usual) with no regard to the parliament declaration showing
that the democracy which Pakistan crying out loud is just a farce and the
actual power lies with the military as seen by countless times the foreign dignitaries
always paying a visit to the Military headquarters with no permission sought (I
believe) from the civilians as they already knows where the ultimate power
lies.

But back
to the deployment, why is this necessary, as everybody knows well that the
Saudis have the best weaponry the money can buy and one of the best equipment
armed forces in the world. So the question is why do they need Pakistani forces
and in what capacity they are there in the first place. But these questions will
never get answered in Pakistan as the Military will never answer why it
bypassed the parliament or why did it not get approval from the government (as
the report says it was approved by the Prime Minister which was just a
camouflaged to show it was approved by the civilians). But even if Pakistani Forces get engaged in the Yemen conflict,
would the people of Pakistan know and would they even raise a voice against it?

2 comments:

And yet the average Pakistani would hold the civilian government accountable for the decision, completely ignorant of the fact that it was and still is the military that runs the nation's foreign policy. In a way, both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are in fact very natural allies, as both are ruled by dynasties (the Al-Saud monarchy in Saudi Arabia and the army in Pakistan) Also, both countries have historically been used as proxies for American interests but at least give credit where it is due. Only the glorious mighty pakistan army has the audacity to claim that they are fighting a 'jihad' whilst simultaneously milking money from the kufaar Americans for the past 70 years, not even the enlightened Saudis can do that ;)

Another point to bear in mind is that the troop deployment is not an exceptional case at all. The army was used against innocent Bahraini protesters in 2011/2012 and more notoriously, against the Palestenians in the 1970 Jordanian Civil War.